I Know You, Mom.

I know you, mom.

I know you feel like you are never enough.

I know you feel like you never hit the mark.

I know you because I know me.

There are no forms or formulas. 

No legitimate handbooks for the myriad of scenarios you face. 

Just you, feeling around in the dark, hoping that you don't break your neck or strangle somebody else's on any given day dealing with cranky little ones to mouthy bigger ones. 

I know you, mom.

I know you wake up each morning searching for how you can do it all with excellence, and then lie down each night only able to see where you did not.

I know you want to sear moments into your mind, into the mind of your child, but fear that you're both only going to remember all the wrong ones.

I know you go to work and feel like you've handed your heart over to the world.

I know you stay at home and feel like you are handing your children a worn out, used up version of the person you long to be.

I know you stand peering into their grown up lives, wanting to hand them nuggets of wisdom that they don't think they need.

I know you, mom.

I know you never stop worrying about what you haven't done and never stop wishing you could undo some of what you have.

I know you sit in the middle of the longest of days and wonder how you can do this.

I know you think about the short time you have left with them close by and try to find a way to breathe through the panic.

I know you sit lonely and worry and pray for the choices they are now making for themselves.

I know you, mom.

I know you are covered in baby food and Cheerios hoping for a shower this week.

I know you are surrounded by a Lego minefield wondering if your house will ever be clean again.

I know you are confined to your van taxi on countless afternoons.

I know you are waiting on the phone call from the kid who was supposed to call when they got there.

I know you are cooking meals and offering to babysit, because no matter where they are in life, your heart is never uninvolved. 

I know you, mom.

I know you love.

I know you dream. 

I know you hope.

I know you expect.

But I also know you hurt.

I know you despair.

I know you worry.

I know you ache.

I know you break.

But those shattered pieces? 

You are not the glue that holds it all together.

It is the Grace of Jesus.

In every place, mom, He knows you.

In every place, mom, He equips you.

In every place, mom, He empowers you.

In every place, mom, He is WITH you.

Wherever you are, when you want to be precisely what your child needs, press into the heart of the Father.

It isn't your perfection they need...it's your pursuit of Jesus.

So keep showing them.

Show them real.

Show them love.

Show them forgiveness.

Show them grace.

Show them, mom.

Laugh at your crazy and you won't lose it at theirs.

Unashamedly make time to breathe, so you can find peace in the pieces.

Respond to mama guilt by choosing to give thanks.

Quiet regret with small intentional moments today.

Live your days, mom.

Live your days with praise that you had breath to do it, and His ever-present grace to flood where you were less than.

Because HE is greater than. 

He is greater than your biggest fear, mom.

Even in that panic thought that rises in the night, He is greater than.

Live your days with His greater than, mom.

I know you.

I know you are thinking it would be nice.

I know you are thinking you can't.

I know you are inspired but feel inadequate.

I know you, mom.

But I know Him.

I know He says He will make your strength perfect. (Psalm 18:32)

I know He says He will be faithful to do what He has called you to.(1 Thessalonians 5:24)

I know He says nothing is impossible with Him.(Luke 1:37)

I know Him, mom.

And He knows you.

"For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” Zephaniah 3:17 (NLT)

I know you, mom.

I know you are chosen, beautifully broken, with power to shape the next generation and courage to do it with grace.

And I know you will.

Take heart, mom. 

I know you: 

YOU are a world changer powered by Grace.

Give Thanks

I realize now that I didn’t initially put it on my porch for me.

It is the cutest little wood framed chalk board you ever saw, which I added last minute to my front porch Fall decor.

I wrote simply: “Give Thanks”.

Then, I hung it on the back of one of my rocking chairs for approaching guests to admire- amongst my vintage cider jars, an endearing sign about pumpkin spice and lots of burlap….but I digress.

It hung there on the side of that rocker facing toward my steps up to the front door at just the right angle…at least for a while.

Today, as I sat in my favorite chair in my den, I looked out the windows toward the rocker and staring in at me were the words, “Give Thanks”.

My first thought was simple: I need to go turn that sign around. 

A few moments later: Man, I know I am going to forget to turn that sign around. 

A few minutes after that: Stop staring at me, sign! You’re freaking me out!

So I stared back.

And that is when I realized that the words were facing in exactly the right direction.

So many times I only give thanks from the outside in, when I really need to be first giving thanks from the inside out.

We stand on the front porch of other people’s life and circumstances and think how thankful they should be.

But we rarely stand on the inside of our own life mess and give thanks in the middle of it.

We are willing to wear thankful as a logo- a sign hung on the front porch of life for the world to see, yet never knead thankfulness into the fabric of our own heart.

Because somedays, that takes excruciating effort. 

Somedays, it takes looking beyond the crazy of what our eyes see.

Somedays we all need a sign staring at us through the window: Give Thanks.

So today...

Sitting in the middle of your mess, give thanks.

Sitting in the middle of your lack, give thanks.

Sitting in the middle of your loss, give thanks.

Sitting in the middle of your questions, give thanks.

Sitting in the middle of your pain, give thanks.

Sitting in the middle of your loneliness, give thanks.

Sitting in the middle of it all, give thanks.

Give thanks inside out.

Acknowledge Jesus as the Giver and trust Him with what He has given.

Not because it will radically change your circumstance, or even the way the world views it.

Give thanks because it radically changes YOU. 

When Jesus sets your feet on a path, He equips you to walk it with victory.

Give thanks.

When Jesus allows tearing down, He is about to do some building up.

Give thanks.

When Jesus seems silent, He wants you to listen hard for game changing truth He is about to speak.

Give thanks.

When Jesus allows rejection in your life, He is ushering in His protection over your life.

Give thanks.

Give thanks, not because you want Jesus to work in your life...give thanks because He already is.

Give thanks inside out and have your perspective transformed, your life empowered, your mind renewed and joy restored.

Thank you, little chalkboard sign.

When you turned around, you turned me around too. 

#GiveThanks

The Ending Place

Have you ever thought backwards? 

Have you ever taken the time to mentally stand at the end of your journey- parenting, homeschooling, career, fitness...and the list goes on- and asked,

"What do I want to be able to say of the journey when I stand in this ending place?"

It isn't easy. 

Because it reminds us that day WILL come. 

I recently did this for our home educating journey. 

Why? Because there are days I need to remember what I want my future self to say, so my present self will make decisions and keep her emotions in line with the ending place truth I want to see. 

I keep them ever before me. 

As I read them today, I realized that maybe you could use some of the truth tucked inside these Spirit words for your journey? 

Your journey hasn't ended yet...but it will. 

What do you want to say in that place of journey's end? 

Praying these words spur you to think backwards from the ending place so you are powerfully fueled for your today place:

"At the end of this journey:  There will not be perfection...there will be beauty in every broken moment. We are not seeking to create a product...we long to disciple a person. We will look back and see that we got it wrong A LOT- but that when we surrendered to our Savior, HE always made it right. When it is all said and done, may we always remember that where intimacy with Jesus is watered, true intelligence always flourishes. 

We loved. 

We laughed. 

We found Grace...and learned  a whole lot along the way." 

-Julie McNeely, Romans 12 Academy, Mama to 3, Surrendered to the One.

Chomping on Air

“Why do you spend your money on junk food, your hard-earned cash on cotton candy? 

Listen to me, listen well: 

Eat only the best, fill yourself with only the finest." 

Isaiah 55:2 The Message

The smell of cotton candy. Take a deep breath and...ahhhh. I mean, it is just magical.

You can hardly ignore it.
Even if you don't like to eat it, when that sweet aroma hits you in the face, you stop and look around to see where it's coming from. 

And you want some.

Maybe your mouth is watering even now thinking about that pink or blue bag of fluffy goodness.

It's the fun food stuff that we eat at parties and amusement parks and fairs.
It's the fluff we shell out lots of money for to bring smiles and instant gratification.

But while that sweetness may entice my senses and tickle my taste buds, I have never heard someone say, "Man! I can't eat another bite! I am just so FULL from that cotton candy!"

When my stomach is growling from true hunger, empty and needing fuel, this air puffed,  artificially flavored sugar is not what I am grasping for.

Why? Because it doesn't truly satisfy.

It doesn't meet my need for nourishment, for strength, for sustanence...it only masks my hunger momentarily. 

It keeps me longing, and searching...chomping on air, hoping to be filled.

And so it goes with life.

We spend our time and energy on artificially flavored, never filling fluff.

We choose the brief moments of sugary good over the eternal life giving abundance of our God.

We grab bags of pretty colored, sweet smelling air and call it nutrition, only to find it disappeared on our tongues, our hands sticky and stained, our stomachs still painfully empty.

We labor to stock our shelves with these candy clouds, then drag ourselves to the cubbard weak with hunger only to find inedible hardened mounds of useless sugar.

There is a drastic difference between good things and God things.

"Listen to me, listen well: 

Eat only the best, fill yourself with only the finest...listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words."

Let's stop settling for some version of nourishment.

Let's stop reaching for what tastes sweet in the moment, but leaves a chasm in your soul.

The Lord tells us that what He offers- grace, unfailing love, abundant life, eternal life- all of it is free! 

It satisfies, strengthens, sustains, directs and protects.

It never leaves you wanting.

So what's your go to fluff?

What is stock piled in your cabinet?

What are your reaching for to satisfy? 

Accomplishments? Accolades? Position? Grades? Relationship? Addictive substances? Food? Friendships? Control? 

And the list goes on...

The shelf life of all those things is ridiculously temporary, the sweetness painfully brief.

The shelf life of what God is offering you: eternal.

What are you spending your life on?

Choose only the finest. 

Don't settle for good things...choose GOD things.

It isn't always easy when life fills your senses with cotton candy lures...

But nothing satifies like Jesus. 

Nothing.

Let's stop taking the bait.

No more chomping on air.

"Taste and see that the Lord is good. 

Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!"

Psalms 34:8 NLT

The Dark Days

"I don't even know where to start. Except from this emptiness I feel trying to suck me into it like a black hole. I really am trying to get out. But it pulls so intensely on me. Jealously, fear, regret, failure, despair, loneliness, anger... they scream so loudly that I cannot hear...I just want to run and hide. But I can't. I am supposed to be the one who is always ok. I am supposed to be the one who just sucks it up and deals with it...I'll eventually be ok right? Sure. And so no one notices this gaping hole in my heart and spirit that is gushing blood so rapidly that I am pale and weak with emptiness."

This is an excerpt from my journal.

I share it because I bet that, even if you don't journal, somewhere in your life there is a piece of paper with similar words and similar heart hurts written all over it.

I share it because, I bet that you not only read those words, but you felt them with me.

I share it because, I bet you've never openly shared the intimate thoughts of your "dark days" either.

I share it because the "dark days" like to stay in the dark. They breed in the dark. They thrive in that murky hidden mess of my mind and yours. 

All those things we know and have learned seem to seep out of our grasp when dark days descend.

Our grip on the reality of who Jesus is and who we are in Christ all of the sudden feel slippery and unsure.

And so we are tempted to take up residence there. 

Worn and drained from the suffocating darkness, it feels safer and easier to stake our tent, hunker down until it all just passes us by.

But the other side doesn't come to you...you have to journey to it. 

Sunsets and sunrises are beautiful...but there is a reason nobody ever takes a picture of the dark. 

It is an ugly place to see.

But oh my...

it can be a lovely place to hear: to hear the voice of your Savior.

The dark amplifies what we cannot see. 

So we must choose to listen to the voice that not only is calling us to the light, but IS the light.

Tuning our ear to His voice is determination to travel toward the dawn.

When the darkness wants to envelope you, remember Jesus wants to embrace you.

When the darkness wants to blind you, remember Jesus wants to bind your wounds.

When the darkness wants to silence you, remember Jesus wants to sanctify you.

When the darkness wants to isolate you, remember Jesus wants to invigorate you.

When the darkness wants to berate you, remember Jesus wants to beautify you.

When the darkness wants to frighten you, remember Jesus wants to free you.

When the darkness wants to confuse you, remember Jesus wants to comfort you.

When the darkness wants to incite you to anger, remember Jesus invites you to peace.

When the darkness wants to taunt you, remember Jesus wants to teach you.

When the darkness want to stun you, remember Jesus wants to strengthen you.

When the darkness wants to paralyze you, remember Jesus wants to promote you. 

When the darkness wants to stay, remember Jesus came to SAVE! 

The simple truth is, 

there is always a dawn, even to the darkest nights.

But just as there is sunrise, sunset will come. 

And when, not if, the dark descends, we have two choices:

Let the darkness chain you

or

Let Jesus change you.

I don't know about you, but I am not going to sit down in it.

I am not going to make this my permanent address.

I am walking through.

And if I must walk through it, I don't want to walk out the other side the same as I walked in! 

So how do we move forward from this place? 

Do the next thing.

Breathe. 

Praise. 

Give thanks. 

Dive into the Word.

Actively exchange truth for the lies.

Repeat.

And one day, when you open your eyes, you'll blink wildly at that glimmer on the horizon, and you'll see a sun coming up in your soul.

You may not even recognize yourself...but you will have become so intimately familiar with Jesus, The Lover of Your Soul, that you actually are thankful for the dark days...not because you loved them, but because the most amazing thing happened there: you fell further in love with Him. 

Don't allow your dark days to chain you.

Allow Jesus to change you.

"Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way."

James 1:2-4, The Message

"Show me the right path, O lord; point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you."

Psalms 25:4, 5 NLT

What to Wear

Changing out clothes. 

Let's just say me and "The Great Swap" have a love/hate relationship.

Yes, I'm thankful that I have clothes to swap out(for those of you reprimanding my shallowness in your mind).

But it's the changeover itself that I wish I could just snap my fingers and have completed. Done. Over with.

The sorting, the tossing, the decisions, the piles, the "oh my word, did I actually purchase and wear that" moments...bleh. 

I usually know it's time for "The Great Swap" when I find myself on the edge of or in the midst of a new season standing in my closet lamenting, "I don't have anything to wear!" 

And I dream about filling my closet with anything new and wonderful that I could find to fulfill that gaping hole in my wardrobe.

But we all know in reality, what I am really saying is that every outfit I've tried just doesn't work. 

It's not that I don't have clothes in my closet, I just haven't found the right clothes.

It's that "what to wear" moment that plagues us all.

And every female reading this knows how that affects not just your appearance but your whole mood and attitude! Can I get a witness?!? 

I face that question every day. And I answer it-sometimes better than others. Yikes. (Especially in the 90's- I mean I answered that question so horribly, so often.) 

I wouldn't dare randomly and blindly grab from my closet with just a mere hope that what ends up in hand works for my day and destination ahead.

And yet...I do it every day in the spirit.

My spirit. My heart. My true self. My life. The most important part of who I am...do I ever stop and contemplate the "what to wear" moment that faces me each morning for my spirit? 

In Luke 24:49 Jesus says,
"I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

Over and over in scripture we are told to clothe ourselves with Christ Jesus and the character and power found therein: compassion, humility, strength, dignity...and the list goes on. 

So what am I allowing to clothe my life? 

Just as I choose to put on physical clothes each morning, I choose to clothe myself spiritually as well. 

Or even worse, I walk around spiritually naked, exposed, unprepared.

In this passage, Jesus makes a promise: a promise of power. 

Not a power that we can muster on our own, but a power from on high- a supernatural, heavenly power. 

A never-failing, ever present, perfectly portioned power.

But instead of picking up this gorgeous garment that is exactly what I need, I stand in the closet of my mess and pilfer through the ratty torn and tattered pieces and convince myself they I will do. 

They are comfortable. And they don't draw any attention. 

I can just blend in and auto pilot my way through life as usual.

That is the effect of the absence of Holy Spirit clothed power, after all.

So here is the real question:

Why clothe my life with the enemy's reject hand me downs when in reality I am a daughter of the One true King?!?

I have full access to His unlimited power in every area of my life.

Every. Stinkin. One.

Really.

So will I reach for it? 

Will I choose to wear it?

Or will I leave it hanging there in the closet amidst everything else I've tried that doesn't work, doesn't fulfill...and go through my day whining on the inside that all too familiar, 

"I don't have anything to wear!" ? 

You may be like me, standing on the edge of a new season- or even smack dab in the middle of it- wondering what to wear. 

Feeling like nothing works. It's affecting your mood, your attitude, every atmosphere you enter.

It's time for the The Great Swap.

I won't lie, friend. It isn't easy.

There is work involved.

And some moments, it may seem like that pile never ends.

But when you pick up the Holy Spirit's power, you'll find yourself perfectly clothed for the season you are in.

Come rain or shine or heat or cold of life, you will be prepared to face it with strength and joy.

When you outfit from Victory, you no longer have to worry about trying to attain it- it's woven into very the fabric of who you are. 

Changes and choices are never easy.

Clothe yourself with power.

Jesus made a way for you to wear the ultimate power suit. 

Don't settle for rags. He died to give you riches.

What will you clothe yourself with today? 

I choose Jesus. Praying you will, too. 

Scandalous

Sometimes is is easier to pretend than to be real.
It's easier for me to pretend that I am ok.
To pretend I am not racked with
hurt
jealousy
fear
bitterness
confusion
insufficiencies
doubt
failure
frustration
and the list goes on...

Because doesn't fake live longer?
I mean, like,  forever?
Doesn't the artificial end up superior in the race for longevity?
It is plastic and perfect, streamlined and efficient.

From Barbie in the dream house to the nails on my fingertips to the fruit in the coffee table bowl.

And there are days I want that.
All. of. That.

I want the plastic existence.
I want to pretend.
I put forward the artificial.
Because it feels like perfection.
It feels like it.

Plastic doesn't yell at her kids and escape by letting them linger on their devices all day.
Mrs. Pretender doesn't ever cry herself to sleep, isn't consumed by fear.
Artificial doesn't get angry at the world and circumstances.
Perfection.
*eye roll*

But the fruit in the bowl?
I notice it's dusty.
Untouched. Unused.
A pre-relic with no purpose.

Barbie?
Someone has to create her life for her.
She doesn't even have the power to move, to breathe.
She cannot reproduce life...she cannot even live it.

And these french tips?
They can't grow. They just cover up the real thing.

So what's missing?
Life. Real life.
The plastic, the perfect, is only offering us a deceptive invitation to imitation.

And so we RSVP because the pretending and the plastic seems to hurt so much less...at least in public, anyway.

The artificial doesn't have to feel all that fear and pain and hurt...right?
But it also never has the opportunity to heal...
to love,
to grow,
to reproduce the beauty that makes this world worth waking up to,
to find purpose and to go hard and fast in the direction of her dreams.

It's true: fake may last longer. But it doesn't actually live.

So today, I am ripping up piled high stationery on the desk of my life.
All those invitations that beckon me to dress up and put on my best appearance, plastic performance.
All those masquerade balls that want me to exist in artificial anonymity so that others aren't inconvenienced by my imperfections- my living.
I. am. shredding. them. ALL.

Because we all have one ultimate choice to make:
imitate life
or
live it.

Me? I choose Grace. Scandalous Grace.
It is the only way I will ever truly live.

What do you choose?

John 1:16

"For from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace."

John 10:10

"The thief comes only to steal kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."

Listen and worship to these words of worship by Hillsong United

#GraceLife
#SimpleTruth